Downham Market/Norfolk pair Rocky Lewis and Mark Riches suffered a surprise loss in the first round of the pairs against P Dwyer and J AKester at the Great Yarmouth Bowls Festival yesterday.

The match was close early on with the score 4-4 at five ends but after 11 ends the Akester pair led 15-7 only to be pegged back to 15-15 after 14 ends. But the Riches pair failed to score on the last five ends losing 26-15.

In a high scoring game K Taylor/S Stimpson (Freethorpe Bowls club) beat M Lain/J Hipperson 28-26 which included a full house of eight shots on the 19th end.

W Wilgreess/M Hartzman won two games 27-11 and 24-16.

Part of the fours winners P Clark/A Nixon lost to father Willgress, partnered by Paul Webb, 21-10 and went on to win their second game 19-10.

Daniel Seabourne/Mark Royal won their first game 23-9 and the second 25-20. The youngest pair in the pairs R Garnam/J Parsons won a close game against S Carr/R French 24-23 after being 13-21 down at 16 ends.

Other selected qualifiers were D Mills/I Wones, M Harrison/P Boldero, P Parsons/D Smith, J Lesley/R Summers and K & A Brooks,